Constitutional Crisis Day 9: upping the ante
The MN House of Representatives met at noon today for the fifth time in their 2025 session. Again, no Democrats have bothered to attend today’s floor session.
Another 183 bills were introduced and sent on to committees for review. Other routine House business was conducted. The House will return to session tomorrow (Thursday) at 3:30 p.m. The House passed a resolution today urging the Governor to use the state patrol to bring in the absent Democrats for tomorrow’s session.
Yesterday, Day 8 of the crisis, an incident occurred during the year’s first meeting of the House Public Safety committee. It was captured on video by committee member Walter Hudson (R-30A, Albertville). Rep. Hudson’s official photo:
The Center’s David Zimmer was watching and writes his own account of the event. A group of protestors disrupted the hearing for more than 20 minutes. Capitol security arrive on the scene at the 4:48 mark of the video.
Rep. Hudson identifies the ringleader (the one with the bullhorn) as a staff member of the nonprofit organization Aliveness Project, Inc.
The bullhorn bearer calls Rep. Hudson, a bald African-American (as shown above), “you chicken meatball-headed motherfucker” in the first few seconds of the video. So, you get an idea of the level of discourse on display. At 19:15, bullhorn barker adds the adjective “greasy” to the chicken/meatball rant.
The committee disruption was apparently an outgrowth of a capitol protest organized by boycotting state Rep. Leigh Finke (DFL-66A, St. Paul).
Public Safety will be meeting again this afternoon to take up an anti-crime bill, HF 7.
All of this is notable because House Democrat members themselves are making such a point of avoiding the capitol complex. Last Friday, at a press conference in Minneapolis, House Democrat leader Rep. Melissa Hortman (around the 13:30 mark of this video) says that Democrats are staying away out of fear of violence at the hands of her Republican colleagues. Of course, this outrageous slander goes unchallenged by the assembled media. The fact is closer to the opposite: Republicans doing the work of the people have much to fear from the supporters of boycotting Democrats, as shown yesterday.
As for The Aliveness Project Inc., it was first incorporated back in 1987 with a purpose “To empower those who are HIV+ and/or living with AIDS.”
According to tax records on file, annual revenue at Aliveness grew steadily from $1 million to $2 million over the decade from 2010 to 2019. Then with COVID and greater Democratic control of state and Federal government, revenue exploded to more than $6 million in 2022.
The nonprofit touts a $1 million grant received from Federal taxpayers earmarked by Democratic U.S. Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar. State government has been ever more generous with your tax dollars, as I documented on Twitter (X) last night.
The Aliveness Project also gets substantial funding from the state Dept. of Health:
More and more, over the years, government has turned to nonprofits to perform even the most basic functions of government. But nonprofit grantees receive little oversight.
If this nonprofit has such excess manpower that it is able to provide the shock troops for Democrats, then perhaps taxpayer funding should be re-evaluated.
Other than AlphaNews, of course, there has been no media coverage of yesterday’s committee disruption. Legacy media have been too busy carrying the House Democrats’ water by the tanker-full.
MPR News: Minnesota House Democrats get to work in districts as they boycott the session
Tomorrow will be a big day in the crisis as the state Supreme Court takes up the matter.